Damn Romance Novel
by briallnanson
Summary: A collection of Bethyl AU one shots.
1. A Wedding

The sun seeping into the room burned Beth's eyes. They weren't even open and she felt the need to squeeze them shut tighter; maybe throw the covers over her head and stay in bed until her hangover wore off or until night fell: whichever came last. She had half a mind to do it; to lay there and try to mentally will away any evidence that the previous night had happened at all. She wasn't quite that lucky though and she was sure that no amount of mental effort could make the large, warm body lightly snoring next to her disappear.

_Oh God, _she thought, knowing exactly what she would find if she opened her eyes and willed her throbbing head to turn left: dark hair, tattoos and defined biceps.

She blamed the moment she switched from the sweet wine to whatever Rosita and Tara thrusted her way. That had to have certainly been her demise; the moment she threw her heels and her dignity under that table stacked with wedding gifts and she began giggling too much, saying too much to the grumpy man she'd been sat next to. The things she'd said...  
"Oh god" she croaked out loud in embarrassment and immediately regretted it; the phrase carrying too many memories of exactly how many times she'd said that just a few hours before clutching to those perfect arms for dear life.

She managed to turn slightly and crack one eye open, finding him laying on his stomach; facing away from her so that all she could see was his shaggy mop of hair. The scars that littered his back had shocked her the night before and he'd shuffled awkwardly for a few moments as he let her stare in silence. She didn't know if it had been the alcohol or just a sense of self preservation but she'd chosen to not mention them at all just then. Today they no longer shocked her, instead the sight of his bare back made her cheeks flush because now there were other trails there. New ones; bright and red and in the size of her fingernails.

That had definitely been the shots of tequila. They were to blame for the way she'd clutched him to her, legs locked around his hips and pulling him closer; slurring something over and over about _"so good"- _or had that been him?

She flailed a little as she tried to sit upright without causing too much movement; failing spectacularly. A light stirring at her side made her alert to her companion who only grumbled a little in his sleep, but didn't wake.

She tore her gaze from him and looked about the room, spotting the awful turquoise dress she'd been forced into the previous morning; carelessly tossed into a corner of the room she didn't remember being anywhere near the night before. She wondered if she could manage to slip it back on without making too much noise and running out of the room but she ruefully remembered a distinct tearing sound at Daryl's hands; after he deemed the hook fasteners too complicated for his urgency.

_It was an ugly dress anyway, _Beth thought and for a moment she felt guilty for thinking so; it was Maggie's favorite color, after all.

She caught her reflection in the mirror on the opposite wall: blonde hair a mess of curls awkwardly still held up by the few pins that hadn't been yanked out while Daryl buried his hands there. Her makeup might have been a mess too, though she couldn't tell from this distance and the view the mirror afforded her. Oh yes- the view. All she'd had to do was prop herself up on her elbows and watch the reflection of Daryl's back flex as he kissed and nipped his way up her thighs- her elbows had given out under her, sending her back flopping down on the mattress not long after she watched his head dip down between her thighs, with one look up at her and a smirk on his face.

With a decided little huff, she ripped the sheet closest to her, wrapping it around her and tumbling out of bed gracelessly. She wandered over to the bathroom; very conscious of the little aches in her body that made her wobbly on her feet.

"Jesus," she muttered under her breath as she took a look at herself in the bathroom mirror. Bite marks littered her neck and with a deep breath, she let the sheet fall down to inspect the damage. A few on her breasts, bruises on her hips and thighs...she may have told him to be a little rough. Right. She may have _pleaded _and moaned out for him to do so.

That was definitely due to the last strawberry daiquiri she'd thrown back before she dragged him out of the hotel ballroom and towards the elevators.

She wished she could have chalked it up to the drinking or the sentiment of seeing her sister married but she knew, even before all the toasts and the glasses of wine. She hadn't been able to keep her eyes away from Glenn's surly and grumpy looking friend when she was stone cold sober. She had failed miserably at keeping her hands off him with a few drinks in her.

God he really was attractive. No. Sexy. _Damn_ sexy.

She might have said that to him while she pulled him into her mouth. The taste of him was still in her mouth and she made a grab for her bag of toiletries sitting on the counter, smiling when she spotted the bottle of aspirin she'd had the sense to pack.

_Yes please. _She thought, grabbing for the pills.

Ironically, she'd said that a lot to him too. Well, mainly just _please_.

After taking the pills, she wrapped the sheet around herself tightly, trying to hold on to her last shred of dignity. Though she didn't suppose it was dignity that got her to lock herself into the bathroom after spending the night doing and saying very undignified things to the man on the other side of the door.

She heard him moving about the bed, definitely not in his sleep and with a deep breath and a little nod at her own reflection -chin held high- she opened the door into the room.

He looked sleepy and surprised to see her but not any less attractive than he had been the night before; particularly in the unpressed suit he'd shown up in, sleeves rolled up to his forearms. If anything, seeing his bare broad shoulders and hickeys she knew she'd made, cause a stir in her belly and she silently cursed herself for having so little resolve around him.

"Thought you left," he grumbled, voice sleepy and rough and damn if it didn't make her breath catch. _It is _my _room, _she almost said. Instead, she shuffled from foot to foot taking in the state of the hotel room, a vase had been knocked down from the dresser and she vaguely recalled being hoisted up on it, turquoise dressed pushed up around her waist.

"No." Was all she could come up with. They stared at each other for a few more moments and something about the way his eyes were fixed on her made Beth hold her head just a little higher; a sense of satisfaction at the thought that he'd been right there with her; grunting and yes- even begging under _her _touch. "Did you want me to?" she asked.

Another pause of silence and she could almost pin point the moment when the air shifted. When she knew they weren't _quite _finished yet.

"Nah," He rasped out.

She smiled. A boldness that hadn't existed until his eyes swept her sheet-covered body sending a shiver of anticipation down her spine.

"Good," she said, letting the sheet fall to the floor, on top of that turquoise bridesmaid's dress.


	2. Marriage (part 1)

A/N: I finally finished something! I have a million half-done AUs for this series sitting in my folders and today I sat down and finished one. This is going to be a two parter. Leave me reviews and I'll post part 2 soon (yes, that's blackmail).

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**Georgia, 1867**

"Should I set a place for Mr. Dixon?"

Beth looked up from her plate of food towards Patricia, then turned her gaze towards the grandfather clock in the corner of the room. She'd been waiting for him for nearly an hour and as if to emphasize that point; her stomach gave a rumble.

"I reckon Mr. Dixon won't be showing up in time for dinner." She said with a sigh as she watched Patricia usher the kitchen maid to move some of the plates on the table closer to Beth. She looked around at the large dining table pathetically and completely unsurprised that she was sharing her dinner with no one but 7 empty chairs. She could count the number of times she had had dinner with her husband on one hand, and one of those times had been her wedding day.

Still, her loneliness didn't make her heartless and as Patricia exited after the maid, she called out, "Patricia."

The housekeeper took a few steps back into the room and Beth glanced towards the main door of the dining room again, a silly part of her hoping he'd make an entrance any minute. "Make sure you leave something aside ready to heat up for when he comes back. In case he's hungry."

Patricia stopped for a beat as if to say something; but after a few second's consideration she only nodded. "Of course Miss Greene," and left the room. She was sure the kitchen maids probably laughed at how pathetic she was; going through this ritual of waiting for him every night only to wind up alone until the wee hours of the morning when he would stomp into the house. Even then, it was never to her. He usually took residence inside what had been her daddy's office if he wanted to sleep, but mainly he'd head back by the barn, skinning an animal if he'd been out hunting or cleaning his bow or a gun. On one occasion she hadn't seen him all day and in a fit of silent panic, she'd decided to take a horse out to look for him, only to find him sleeping on some hay stacks in the barn.

She tried to push down the humiliation she felt to think that her _husband _would rather sleep in the barn than in the same house as her; finding comfort in that at least it had been her the one to find him and not any of the workers who would no doubt spread the news of how much Mr. Dixon wanted nothing to do with his wife.

Patricia was the only one to seem to give her kindness. Of course, she'd also raised her. But she never questioned when Beth ordered that every meal be enough for both her and her husband (even if he was never home), and in private, like she'd done just moments before, she'd take to calling her "Miss Greene". Never "Mrs. Dixon" if she could help it; even with others present, Patricia would favor simply calling her "M'am" before ever uttering Beth's new name. "M'am" she could be. She could be the lady of the Greene's house and farm like her daddy had wanted her to be. Daryl Dixon's wife, was another matter entirely and something that nearly 8 months after taking his name, she still didn't feel like. Being "Miss Greene", even if only to Patricia, gave her a sense that she hadn't completely lost control of her life.

A part of her thought Patricia felt partially responsible for Beth's situation. It had been Otis who'd pushed for the marriage, after all, once her daddy had died. Beth didn't blame any of them though. She was set to marry Daryl years before Otis had insisted upon it. She'd just turned 18 when her daddy had taken her hand and _suggested _(without leaving much room for discussion) how much it would benefit the family to have the neighboring lands the Dixons owned at their disposal. How now that Maggie had married and gone off north, she was their only hope to save the farm, and how in retrospect, it had been far better that Merle Dixon had suggested a wife for his brother and not himself.

She was lucky; all things considered. Daryl wasn't a stranger. She'd known him for years (as long as she could remember, in fact), and even if he was a man of few words Beth knew him enough to assume that life with him might not be unbearable.

So when the war got worse, Daryl Dixon had placed a hesitant kiss on her newly ringed hand and he boarded a train headed for Virginia, a photograph of her tucked into the pocket of his uniform.

It was so much more the idea of marrying because she'd been ordered to that she was opposed to, rather than _who _was to become her husband. She had meant it when she'd write to him; telling him to take care of himself and that she prayed every day that he came back to her safe and sound. His replies were always short and far less sentimental. A mere sign that he was alive, with polite well wishes for her and her family; but with the eagerness Beth awaited every single letter anyone would have guessed she was madly in love with the man.

She blamed the months after the war. When she was at her most vulnerable after being inside her house with nothing but her own grief for company.

The war had, unsurprisingly, brought death with it; Merle Dixon died at the front and Beth didn't know the particulars but she assumed it wasn't quietly. He'd been the first to enlist and had happily gone off to spill and draw blood in the name of the south. Back home, Hershel Greene passed in the middle of a gray and still winter night. Both of his daughters by his bedside. Maggie had clutched to Beth in her grief but as the days and weeks dragged on, life seemed to go back to normal and Maggie had a baby on the way and a husband in the north that needed her attention. Beth was left to sit idly by; alone in her big empty farm with nothing to do but feel pity for herself.

When Daryl Dixon was dragged through her front door, as news of the war being over soon floated around the town, Beth had focused all of her energies on him. On tending to his wounds, nursing him back to health and ever so slowly becoming more and more content with the idea that he'd be the man she'd spend her life with, as her daddy had ordered it.

He was kind to her then, loving even, as she read to him every night and she sat beside him while he was still bedridden, recovering from a bullet wound in his side. She'd started out in a chair by his bedside while she read, but one day he'd silently held his hand out and pulled her forward gently, until she was sitting on the edge of his bed. She'd blushed and he'd looked at her through squinted, curious eyes.

"It isn't proper, is it? Being here..."

He shrugged his shoulders and took her hand in his, "Ain't no one here to say nothing. It's just me, Beth."

She'd had a fleeting thought about how no one else had ever seemed to say her name quite like he did and she really should have pinpointed that moment as the moment she was done for. They continued on like that from that night forward; and she'd even braved a kiss to his cheek as a 'goodnight', the night before he proposed they marry.

There'd been a war raging through; but after the dust had settled, the soldiers buried and the widows did their grieving, their attentions turned back to the petty gossip spilled over sweet tea on hot Sundays after church. If only to divert from the feeling of losing the war. Beth hardly ever noticed, she didn't leave her farm if she could help it under normal circumstances and with Daryl in her care, she found even less reason to leave his side. He'd been recovering quickly, far more so than the doctor had predicted and as Beth finished changing his bandages the day after she'd kissed him goodnight, he'd grabbed a hold of her wrist before she could move too far away from him.

"Otis's been saying," he began. "We oughta get married soon. People are startin' to talk."

Her eyes had gone wide as she reconsidered the idea of marriage. She wasn't nearly as opposed to it as she had been when it was first proposed, but after the months she'd spent by him she'd hoped that he'd simply forget about the marriage; with both her father and his brother gone.

"What they been saying?" she asked, genuinely confused.

He shrugged sheepishly, "you know."

"What?"

He sighed and looked away from her, embarrassed to have to explain, "People are talkin' bout us. 'Bout you. Living with me without bein' married."

"We ain't living together!" she protested because she wasn't with him in _that_ way. He only raised an eyebrow at her and she suddenly understood that it didn't matter what the truth was. Only what everyone else thought.

"Oh," she said. And one week later, while he leaned his bad side on a wooden crutch, the pastor had given his blessing and she'd walked out of the small church a married woman.

Now, so many months later, she felt silly thinking back at the naive hopes she'd entertained for herself. She'd admired Daryl for years. He was strong and handsome; someone easy for Beth to let her imagination run with. She imagined herself being able to ease her way through his tough and silent exterior with her kindness and patience. She even imagined him falling in love with her one day and now she nearly laughed at the thought. Whatever friendship they'd formed in the time after the war, whatever hope she had built during the months before they married, were abruptly shot down almost the minute she became his wife. He became cold and distant and while before she could recognize his lack of conversation for shyness, in marriage it was simply that he didn't wish to be near her. Of course, by then Beth had already, stupidly, handed him her heart.

The next morning Beth walked into her father's office to find Daryl pacing the length of the room, biting the nail of his thumb.

"Patricia said you were looking for me," he only grunted in response and she stepped into the room and closed the door behind her. "I was upstairs. You could have just come up."

He simply stared at her as if she'd grown another head and Beth sighed but said nothing. She wasn't quite in the mood to think about how much Daryl avoided even going near their bedroom. And she only said _their _bedroom because that's what it had been appointed. She couldn't bare the embarrassment of telling anyone (even Patricia) that she and Daryl weren't even _properly _husband and wife. He'd never touched her; never so much as kissed her on the lips.

She was sure that just being in his presence in her nightgown was scandalizing him but she'd lost her desire to walk on eggshells for him a long time ago. Sometime between the not-talking and the not-touching of their relationship. Sometime in the months where the surprise of what she'd hoped and what she'd gotten out of her marriage felt like it had taken a little bit of the life and light out of her. She'd lost hope for them a long time ago and now she walked around with a bit of an ache in her chest; wondering what she was missing every time she received a letter from Maggie who was so completely happy with her life. If she hadn't naively set her hopes on Daryl, if she'd yelled and cried enough until she was free to marry someone else, maybe she wouldn't feel so empty all the time. Even as the thought passed her mind, she knew she would have never done it. Not when her family's farm was at stake and not after she'd started to care about Daryl. She felt stupid for still caring about him but while she had come to terms with the fact that she would probably never stop, she'd stopped looking up at him with hope that things would ever get better.

"I'm going out for a few days. T' hunt," he said as he regarded her carefully. Beth nodded slowly, wondering if she was missing something. This wasn't the first time he disappeared for days at a time, but it was certainly the first he was telling her about it.

"Do you need me to tell the maids to get something ready for you?"

She was at a loss as to what he could possibly want and he only shook his head, a hint of frustration in his eyes.

"Nah. Just lettin' you know is all."

They stared at each other for a few long moments before Beth simply shrugged.

"Alright. Have a good hunt." She gave him a half-hearted smile, intent on making her way back up to her room. With a furrowed brow and a look of concentration on his face though, Daryl crossed the distance between them and took hold of her arms before pulling her forward (making her stumble with the force of it) and pressing a brusque and clumsy kiss to her forehead.

Eight months ago she would have melted under his touch, flushed all the way up to her ears, but today she just stared at him curiously, ready to ask him if he was feeling alright.

He nodded once, seemingly satisfied with his goodbye and grumbled out, "I'll see ya soon." Stalking off towards the door and leaving her standing there alone.

* * *

"A what?" Beth asked with a shaky voice. She was trying to process the words Patricia had just uttered. Not being able to make the connection between Daryl, her _husband_, and what her housekeeper and friend had suggested.

"It ain't that surprising Miss Greene. Men like that have affairs all the time. Why, Mr. Walsh down at the Harris farm has been going around with some woman from out of town. Even Mrs. Walsh, Andrea, knows about it. I reckon she don't care much as long as he keeps it quiet."

Beth tried to control her breathing as a million scenarios played out in her mind. Each one making more sense than the next.

"Why would he tell me he was leaving then? Shouldn't he be tryin' to hide it?"

Patricia waved her off, "Probably just tryin' to not seem suspicious. It's a lot more suspicious that he actually told you, if you ask me. He's been comin' and goin' as he damn well pleases this whole time and only now he finds the decency to tell you? Reckon he's feelin' guilty about something. Probably knocked her up."

At those words, Beth suddenly felt light headed and nauseous all at once. The thought that she didn't have Daryl's affections was one thing, but someone _else _having them. Someone else having a _family _with him. Patricia came up behind her to lace up her corset but she batted her hands away.

"I think I'd rather wait a little bit before I get dressed, Patricia." She felt as though just the smallest tug on the strings of the corset would make her chest explode. "You can go now, I'll call you back up after lunch." Or supper. Or the end of the new year, she thought. Patricia tutted and gently patted her shoulder.

"Don't fret over what I told you, Miss Greene. You should consider yourself lucky that he found something to amuse himself with somewhere else. Not all young ladies in your situation are quite that fortunate." She knew what Patricia meant; and she had no way of knowing that when she'd married Daryl, it had been far less at the urging of Otis or her deceased father. Even in her ignorance, Patricia took one look at her through the mirror and her face softened into one of concern. "Or maybe you oughta ask him yourself. He gets back tonight; talk to him. I could be wrong, Miss Greene."

Beth doubted it. Suddenly everything she'd been bewildered by made sense and though she had a hard time connecting Daryl to secret mistresses, Beth had very little to tell her otherwise.

She could have been standing in front of her mirror in her unfastened corset for hours or minutes. She couldn't be sure. She vaguely recalled the click of her door closing as Patricia made her leave. She wanted to find it in her to be angry at someone. At Daryl. At Patricia for putting the idea into her mind when she'd been content in ignorance. In the end, she could only find regret for doing whatever it is she had done to let this happen and an unshakeable desire to simply, run.

She called a kitchen maid up to her room, not being able to trust that Patricia wouldn't talk her down from her decision and she found herself strangely numb as she waited for her suitcase to be brought up, letting her mind wander off and considering how long a trip to the north would take.


	3. Marriage (part 2)

**A/N: Part 2! Finally! Sorry about the very long wait but here it is! I have around 5-6 more AUs lined up, waiting to be finished/published so please review and leave me comments so I can see what you're thinking of these universes so far. I've been planning all of these stories for ages now, and if it seems like I'm slow at updating, it's only because I'm easily distracted (usually by you people on tumblr lol so you only have yourselves to blame, really) and quite picky about what I publish. Again, please review and tell me what you thought of this! x.**

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It wasn't nearly late enough for the sun to have set. If he had to guess, it couldn't have been later than five; but the thick fog and light but insistent rain had darkened the afternoon and Daryl could just barely make out the outline of Hershel Greene's plantation house. He'd lived there for over a year and it was still the Greene's house. Not his. No matter what the papers said. His house was just south of the grand, white house he was currently walking towards, at the end of the Greene's land; a tiny dark shack with a leaky roof and an old raccoon holed up underneath the porch. Sometimes he'd spend the night there, always feeling just slightly out of place in the big house.

He'd spent a majority of his life roaming Hershel Greene's lands, working on his farm for a living since he and Merle didn't have the labor or resources to actually work the lands they owned. He rarely ventured inside the house; it wasn't his place to be inside, wandering the same halls and rooms the Greenes did. Now that he was to call it "home", everything felt so much more breakable, so much more delicate beneath his hands with the knowledge that everything Hershel Greene had worked his entire life for was now at _his _disposal.

His youngest daughter included.

He gripped the strap of his crossbow a little tighter at the thought of her. His _wife_. Never in his miserable existence did Daryl Dixon ever imagine a wife would be something he'd have. And if in his wildest dreams he'd imagined it, the last person he would have put in that place would be Beth Greene.

He'd been drifting around with Merle for years before he went back to Georgia. The only memory he had of Beth was one of a young girl, no older than fourteen and not likely someone Daryl paid too much attention to. Years later though, when his father died and he went back home, that young girl that went by him unnoticed was all he could think on during the years before the war. Bright blue eyes, flushed cheeks and blonde curls moving across her face with the wind that day he'd seen her again for the first time.

He'd been building Hershel a barn when a soft voice spoke to him. He vaguely remembers her saying something like "awfully hot out here. You must be thirsty", but he couldn't know for sure. He'd looked up at her and even back then, before the war and before she settled in next to him every night when he'd taken a bullet to his side, he'd felt his breath catch at the mere sight of her.

He should've known he was a gonner back then. Shoulda known it wouldn't just go away because hell, it'd happened just that morning. When she'd walked into the study with sleepy eyes and her night gown falling off her shoulder and his hands had _itched _to be on her. He'd been holding himself back for months and little by little his resolve was slipping; to where he contented himself by grabbing her arms and planting a kiss on her forehead before running out. Daryl had felt like his heart might give out. Probably from the knowledge that she was so beautiful and, technically, his.

But she wasn't. Not really.

He dropped his crossbow in the shed behind the house with a little more force than necessary and then made his way towards the house with heavy footsteps as feelings that he could only describe as guilt and just a little bit of anger built up in him again. Guilt at knowing that there was a girl beyond the walls of that house that he'd forced into a life with him. Anger, at himself no doubt, that he'd so easily played into his selfishness and jumped at the opportunity to have her in his life. She was all light to him. She'd given him back his life both figuratively and literally when she'd nursed him back to health after the war. And ever so slowly, as the months passed and she bared his name and they lived under the same roof, he could see the light in her fading. He could see the results of his selfishness and how he'd taken a good thing and clutched to it too hard.

He was ruining her, like his daddy had told him he did to things, and he was surprised she was there at all every night when he came back. He was surprised she was still around after months of them hardly speaking. At the very least, he thought bitterly, he'd refrained from touching her. If he did everything else in their relationship wrong, he wanted to know that he never had and never would force himself on her. He'd already married her when she didn't want to. He would never touch her that way if she didn't want him to. And he already knew that she never would. He might not be the best man, but he could give her that.

He might have slammed the door a little too hard as he walked into the house, consumed by his thoughts.

"Oh!" the maid squeaked with a jump just as she ascended the stairs, "Mr. Dixon. We didn't expect you back so soon."

Daryl grunted and half nodded but his attention was drawn to the suitcase the maid clutched in her hand.

"Where ya takin' that?"

The young girl hesitated and looked up toward the stairs, giving herself away immediately but Daryl wanted to hear it, wanted the confirmation of what he was already thinking.

"You best answer me, Girl."

"Mrs. Dixon told me to bring it up. Didn't say for what." She bit her lip and waited, ready to flinch at her master's oncoming anger, but Daryl only stepped forward and snatched the case from her hands, stomping up the stairs and taking them two at a time.

He didn't bother knocking, for the first time since he'd been living in the Greene's home he simply threw the door to "their" bedroom open and stepped inside to find Beth standing at the open wardrobe, staring in contemplation.

"You goin' somewhere?"

She flinched at his voice and turned abruptly, flinching again when he threw the empty suitcase on the bed and she stared at him with wide, almost fearful, eyes.

"You're back."

"Ain't what I asked." There was a part of him, a pretty big part actually, that was telling him to keep his head, to watch his temper. He'd played this scenario in his mind a hundred times. Some times he'd imagine she'd walk up to him and tell him she was leaving; she was tired of being tied down to him and the miserable life he'd subjected her to. Other times he imagined he'd come home one day to an empty house and, if he was lucky, a letter.

Every time he imagined, he thought that he'd quietly accept it. Because he deserved it, and she deserved better. He didn't know what to do with any good, nice thing thrust into his hands; apart from breaking it. Standing in that room he never slept in, with an open suitcase just a few feet away, there was selfishness. A part of him that didn't want to let go of this girl he didn't deserve. That selfishness and panic rose up into anger pretty quickly. Anger, he figured, was an emotion he was familiar and far more comfortable with than whatever name the feeling that was making his heart pound and chest ache had.

"It's ok, you know." Her quiet mumble focused his eyes back on her, as she looked down towards the floor.

"What is?"

She hesitated for a moment, but eventually took a few steps forward and even like this, when he felt he must have looked frightening to her, he took a step back.

"If there's someone else. I understand that this," she waved her hand between them and finally met his yes. "probably ain't what you wanted. To get stuck with me. I can go."

Daryl felt his breathing creep down in the moments he took to simply look at her; to let what she'd just said sink in and he was surprised at how even his voice was when he spoke again.

"The hell are you talking about?"

Beth bit her lip, "Patricia said that it happens a lot. Mistresses and all that."

"'S that what Patricia said?" He squinted at her and began pacing, wondering how the hell this had all changed so much, so quickly. Just minutes ago he was sure Beth was done with him and now he was entertaining a blame for something he'd never even _done. _He knew Patricia had raised Beth from the moment her momma died, but Daryl wouldn't hesitate to put her out on her ass if she was putting ideas into her head.

"You can say it, Daryl," Beth insisted as she watched him pace around the room. "I've made my peace with it. Shane Walsh is seeing someone too and-"

He snapped then, brought his hand from his mouth where he'd been chewing on his nail and took two long strides towards her.

"I don't give a _damn _what Shane Walsh is doing!"

She flinched but Daryl could still see the resolve in her eyes. She didn't get it. And her lack of faith in him angered him; not that he'd ever done much to earn her trust, he also didn't think he'd done anything to earn this.

"Is that what you think of me? Huh?" He was just shy of yelling but leaned down to speak inches from her face; the closest he'd ever been to her, he realized.

"I ain't seeing _no one_," he spat. There was a beat and the relief on Beth's face was obvious, even to him, but by then he was too fired up to let it go. "If that's what you think of me, you might as well just go then."

She started to stutter something out, an apology maybe, and she made a reach for his arm but he snapped it away from her, turning his back and falling onto the edge edge of the bed, head in his hands.

They were both silent for several minutes, Beth completely still where she stood in the center of the room.

"I was doin' it for you," she spoke quietly when she finally said something again. "You ain't happy here. I _know._"

"You don't know nothin'" he mumbled, but with no real bite behind his words.

"I know you don't want to be here. Can't even stand lookin' at me so you're never even here. I thought, after a while, it'd be alright. We could make things work. But you...you don't want this and I don't blame you 'cause I know you only married me because you gave my daddy your word. But you didn't have to. Not if you were gonna be miserable with me."

She began to move and Daryl stiffened, thinking it might be towards him but she only walked over to the large window on the wall opposite him, staring out into the darkness and talking to the fields below them.

"To be honest, I might not be able to do it much longer either. I know it ain't your fault that you don't want this. But...I don't think I can eat at an empty table again."

There was another long silence as he tried to turn words over in his head; tried to give voice to his thoughts and he realized why he'd been avoiding Beth for 8 months. Being forced to tell her the truth; to tell her anything that might scare her away gave him too much to lose. His mind wandered to the suitcase sitting behind him on the bed and with a deep breath, he figured he was close to losing her anyway.

"I ain't got the...the _words_ to say shit like this," he said quietly.

"Why don't you try?" She urged.

He watched her at the window, her head lift and her shoulders square but she still didn't turn to look at him and when she spoke, she only tilted her head just so. It was better, he thought, to not have to say what he needed to say while looking straight at her.

"There's no one else Beth. Never has been. Just hearing you say that; that you'd think that of me. I ain't like that, you know. I'd never do that to you." The words were tumbling out ahead of his brain, much easier to let them go when he didn't have to say it to her sweet face and blue eyes. "I told you: I don't got the words to say it. 'Probably say it all wrong anyway but there won't ever be no one else. Not for me. Not since that day when I was building the barn for your daddy and you brought me sweet tea or water or something -don't even remember what it was you gave me, I just took it. If you still wanna leave you can," he said quietly "but all this: it ain't your fault. None of it. It's on me."

"All those things you said; about me not having a choice. I did. Could'a just gone back on it when Merle and your daddy died. But I didn't."

"Why didn't you?"

He let out one bitter laugh as he looked down at his hands.

"'Cause I'm a selfish bastard. 'Cause the idea of being here, with you...how could I not want that?"

There was a pause as she considered this and then a sigh.

"You don't act like you do."

"That's only 'cause the moment we walked out of that church I noticed how wrong it all was. How I made you do it. Me, Otis, your daddy, Merle. You ain't never got a choice in it. I couldn't look at you knowin' I did that, couldn't pretend shit was fine when it wasn't. When you didn't wanna sit aroun' and play house just for my own sake."

She turned to face him then with an earnest look on her face. They were both so much calmer now; nothing like the fury he'd felt moments ago, and the pained look in her eyes.

"Daryl Dixon, when I said I'd marry you I didn't do it for my daddy, or the farm or anything else. I did it because I _wanted _to. Because I thought we'd have a good life together. I hoped, anyway."

"Yeah," he snorted, "and I just went and messed it all up, huh?"

She gave him a sad smile and began walking towards him, stopping when she was directly in front of him and it was his knees that prevented her from going further.

"We can fix it, right? If you want to..."

He could sense the storm had passed when he looked up at her, when a small hopeful smile graced her face and he allowed himself to really believe that maybe they could.

"You think I wouldn't want to? Beth, you're..." he let the thought drift off as he failed to find the right word to describe what exactly she meant to him.

"Your wife," she finished for him. When he looked up at her, she smiled.

"Yeah," he agreed but after a few seconds she reconsidered.

"You know, I suppose I'm not _properly _your wife, yet." She let the sentence linger until Daryl understood and he blushed furiously.

"It's alright," she assured him. "We got time, right?" He nodded at her, too embarrassed to form any words. She placed her hands on his shoulders when the silence dragged on and he didn't dare break her gaze when her hands moved down his arms.

"Besides," she declared, leaning down to be leveled with his face, "we could always start with just this,"

Daryl had thought about this moment often, about what her lips might feel like against his. He thought about it more than he really thought he had a right to, if he were being honest with himself. Nothing he imagined when he was bedridden and she sat near him in the candlelight as she read, the flames caressing her face just so to let him think of a world were he would reach over and let his lips trace the shadows the flames created, came close to the feeling of actually having her there, his lips on hers and his hands in her hair. When that had happened, he didn't seem to remember but at some point his hands had found a home tangled in her blonde waves and he was pulling her closer, letting her step between his legs to close the distance.

She'd just made the sweetest sound against his mouth, and he swore he only pulled away to try and find a better way to this; one where they were closer, preferably, when the door was unceremoniously pulled open.

"Oh! Mr- I didn't realize-" Patricia stood in the doorway looking dumbfounded, staring at the girl she'd cared for since she was a toddler standing between Daryl Dixon's legs, their faces inches from each other and her skin flushed. "Dinner's ready," she merely said after having decided that she was staring for far too long and quickly left the room. It seemed Patricia had been wrong about her employer after all and that night, for the first time in a very long time, Beth Greene didn't have dinner alone.


	4. Lessons (Prologue)

**A/N: **Another AU! This one will be, technically, a three parter. This is the prologue (it's a short little thing. I plan on having the next part up soon), and there will be two more full length chapters to come. Reviews make me happy and make me write faster. So please leave them and tell me what you think.  
xx.  
NB.

* * *

**September (Prologue)**

He was over 15 minutes late; dragging his tired body inside his muddy work boots down a hallway of blue patterned carpet from a time perhaps before he was even born. And that was a long time, he thought bitterly. He was too old for this shit; no matter what Rick said about this being a "good opportunity". He was too old and too tired to drag his ass across town for four hours a day after a full day at the shop. He knew his aching back and protesting joints were a damn good reason to continue on towards the door at the end of the hallway that he just knew was classroom 1105. Taking over Dale's shop would maybe have him spending less time on his back under cars or crouched down over them. He was pushing forty; he could welcome that kind of relief.

It still didn't leave less of a bitter taste in his mouth that he'd been forced into this. It wasn't as if he were an idiot. He knew numbers; hell, he helped Dale out with them more often than not. And Dale knew him; he knew he would do alright by his shop; knew he wouldn't run it into the ground while Dale took his stupid hat and retired on to Florida. But the old man had shaken his head and muttered something about "union criteria" and with a grimace and several loud hoots from Merle, he'd reluctantly dragged his sorry ass to King County Community College.

Now he had a 70 page notebook in one hand, already rolled up by the way he'd been clutching to it as he walked from his truck into the building, and a pen somewhere in one of his pockets. He hoped he wouldn't need anything else because he'd already paid out the ass for the damn class in the first place.

He grumbled to himself as he reached out for the handle and gave the door a push; unsure if he was in trouble with whatever old bat would be standing in the front of the room. He hadn't been to school in twenty years and last he remembered, he was always being given a dressing down for showing up late or sometimes not even showing up at all.

He threw the door open with a little more force than necessary, making it slam into the opposite wall and receiving a dead silence from the handful of people sitting at desks in front of him. He coughed awkwardly, shuffled a bit before mumbling out an "'m sorry" he was sure only he heard.

Until a quiet voice to his left told him otherwise.

"It's...ok," he turned towards the front of the room, next to the door and frowned. The girl standing there was...a girl. A slip of a girl in cowboy boots with eyes that rivaled Bambi and who looked more like she belonged in _high school _and not standing between a white board and a big desk.

What was more, he suddenly realized they'd been staring at each other for a few seconds too long and she seemed to snap out of it just before he did; clearing her throat and fumbling with some bright yellow pieces of paper on her desk.

"Syllabus," she said as she handed him the pages but not meeting his eye. He shook his head at her even knowing she wouldn't see. He'd been busting his ass in Dale's shop since he was 18 and now Dale offered to leave him the old thing on the condition he get his damn GED and it was all depending on _this _girl?

"Yeah, whatever," he grunted as he ripped the stupid yellow paper from the girl's hand and threw himself into the first empty seat he laid eyes on; front and center of the room.


End file.
